Whether one is on the left or right, this is an important article regarding air safely. Dead is dead no matter whether one is on the right or left.
Pilot to
Passengers: "I'm unarmed"
Paul Jacob (archive)
September 7,
2003 |
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Suppose terrorists sneak aboard your flight. Perhaps they have failed to
smuggle (conventional, metallic) weapons on board. What they do have are their
intentions, their training, and their willingness to die. The flight attendants solicit your attention, and explain what to do in the
event of an emergency. They demonstrate the use of the oxygen masks and the
flotation devices. There's a short film. Then you hear from one of the pilots.
"Welcome aboard. This is Joe, your flight captain. We're cruising at
such-and-such thousand feet, at such-and-such miles per hour. The skies are
clear and we expect smooth sailing. And oh, by the way--I'm unarmed. And the
co-pilot is unarmed. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight." No sane pilot would announce that the residents of the cockpit are easy
pickings. But if such an in-flight admission were indeed made on an American
jumbo jet in the America of September 11, 2003, would any stray terrorists among
the passengers learn anything they don't already know? Here's the problem. Two years after the 911 attacks--almost a year after
Congress authorized a broad program to arm commercials pilots--the
Transportation Security Administration is dragging its feet, making it almost
impossible for pilots to defend themselves against lethal force with lethal
force of their own. The TSA prefers air marshals to handle the
last-line-of-defense type thing. Which is fine, so long as the bad guys pick a
plane with an air marshal, and the air marshal succeeds in overpowering the bad
guys when the bad guys make their move. Back when Congress was debating whether pilots should or should not be in a
position to shoot at terrorists who breach the cockpit, some persons wondered
whether pilots could be trusted with so dangerous an object as a gun. Perhaps
instead of steering the plane the pilots would accidentally shoot up the
instrument panel or something. At the time, Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young observed that "armed
F-16s are prepared to shoot down any commercial jet that is hijacked by
terrorists.... [W]e must allow trained and qualified pilots to serve as the last
line of defense against such a potential disaster." Even Senator Barbara Boxer, normally in favor of victim disarmament, stressed
the obvious. She asked us to imagine, should another 911-style attack occur,
"how the survivors of all those passengers and crew will feel if we failed to
allow pilots to have guns to defend the plane and an American flight was brought
down by the American military." Pilots and passengers won the congressional battle over authorizing pilot
self-defense. But the agency charged with the implementation isn't implementing.
The TSA is actively deterring pilots from applying for arms training. In pursuit
of its obstructionist agenda, TSA is: So today, two years after 911, less than 150 pilots are qualified to bear
arms in the cockpit. It's as if the terrorists have found a way to infiltrate
the Transportation Security Administration. Thousands of pilots could be trained in short order if the agency simply
farmed out the job to private training academies. But that's too easy and
sensible for government work. There are over 66,000 members of the Air Pilots Association. On any
particular day there may be anywhere from 4,500 to 7,500 commercial planes in
the air at any one moment. Basically, we're telling the terrorists: "Don't
worry. The chances are vanishingly low that either pilot on the flight you pick
is going to be armed." No in-flight announcement needed.
Paul Jacob is Senior Fellow at U.S. Term Limits, a Townhall.com member group.
©2003 Paul Jacob
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